


In Every Language

by Decepticonsensual



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 02:39:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3364631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a prompt from Greyliliy ("flowers").  Prowl's been finding some odd gifts outside his office.  Unmasking the culprit isn't too hard, but deciphering the meaning?  He might just need more than his considerable detective skills for that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Every Language

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreyLiliy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyLiliy/gifts).



> "I suppose a rose by any other name  
> The perfume and the prick's the same."
> 
> \- "Bring On The Men" from Jekyll & Hyde

The alien specimen was sitting by itself in the centre of his desk.  

It was a branch about as long as his palm, slightly crooked; the end had been sliced at an angle, but it was cut rather than snapped off.  Dark green leaves were spaced along it with almost military regularity, an impression that was only spoiled by several dozen tiny, delicate yellow blossoms towards the tip.  The spiky little spheres resembled miniature explosions, Prowl thought ominously.

He scanned it, then bagged it with great care, printing out an evidence label for the bag stamped with the time, date, and location it was discovered.  Old habits, yes, but they might just serve him well in this case. He’d dismissed the first incident. The single white gardenia blossom, so small he’d almost stepped on it before noticing it, could have been carelessly dropped outside the door to his office by one of the scientists who always seemed to be hustling back and forth with armfuls of Earth specimens for study; it could even have been tracked in by accident on a set of wheels, though, on reflection, the flower had looked fairly pristine.  Either way, Prowl had picked it up, dutifully taken it down to where Perceptor was busy examining a mineral sample, and asked the scientist to take custody of the stray specimen, in case any of his colleagues were missing it. And he’d thought no more about it, until it had happened again.

That time, it had been a damask rose.  Prowl had actually picked up the scent before he’d noticed the blossom, also lying in the corridor outside his door.  Unlike the previous incident, this flower had been pushed right up against the door itself, half-hidden and completely out of the way of foot traffic.  Curious.  Most likely another accident, but… curious.

When Prowl had been with the Iacon police, his old captain had had a saying:  once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is a pattern. Prowl, though, had always held that twice was enough – waiting for a pattern to play out three times often meant you were too late.

So, he’d taken it down to the labs again, and this time, just on the off chance, he’d spoken to all the scientists on shift.  Perceptor had barely spared him a glance and murmured something absent about spectrographic analysis; Skyfire had shrugged and commented that the blossom was pretty, but he didn’t recognise it; Beachcomber’s optics had widened, and he’d insisted on putting the rose under a microscope, but when this had produced nothing but a ten-minute discourse on how groovy the colours were, Prowl had held out his hand in silent disapproval for the flower to be returned.  He’d ignored Wheeljack’s contribution (“What?  I’m just saying, for safety’s sake, if we don’t know where it came from, we should carry out a controlled explosion – it’s what Red Alert always lets – um, I mean, always  _orders_ me to do!”) and had been on his way back to his office, thoughtfully twirling the flower between his fingertips, when he’d run into Hound, who’d been dropping off a case full of soil samples.

Well, it wouldn’t hurt to ask.  “Hound. Recognise this?”

The scout had glanced at the flower and broken into a grin.  “Of course!  So you found –”  And then he’d looked from the rose to Prowl’s frown, and back, and had clammed up immediately.

“Found… what?”

“Found – a-a damask rose,” Hound had stammered.  “They’re, I mean, they don’t usually grow around here.  It’s nice!  Do you like it?”

Prowl had narrowed his optics.  “Why would that be relevant?”

Hound had given an exaggerated shrug.  “Just making conversation.”  

“So it isn’t one of your lab specimens.”

“Nossir.”  There had been something curiously intent in the scout’s expression that Prowl hadn’t been able to decipher.

And now the third in the series:  not dropped, but unmistakably left for him.  As he turned the evidence bag over to examine its contents more closely, he spotted a tag that had been hidden among the blossoms.  It was Earth paper, but the writing on it was Cybertronian.  And not just any Cybertronian script, either. Prowl’s browridge furrowed as he peered at it.  Old Iaconian calligraphy had been almost a lost art, even before the war; few mecha learned to read it (though police detectives were among them, since knowledge of all of Cybertron’s scripts was considered essential background), and even fewer could properly reproduce the intricate geometric patterns.

Prowl read the message on the tag, pinched the bridge of his nose, and then switched on the comm. to summon a certain bot to his office.

*

There was no chime. Instead, the door opened a crack, and then closed again.  Prowl, seated at the desk, frowned.

Bright lines sketched a box in thin air, and a second later, Mirage’s form materialised, lounging in the chair opposite.  “You wanted to see me, sir?”

Prowl simply folded his hands and looked at him.

Mirage could feel his plating tighten a little, nervously.  He managed to school his expression, but couldn’t keep his optics from flickering to where the branch of acacia flowers sat in a vase (made out of an old lab beaker, it looked like) on Prowl’s desk.  The second-in-command’s optics, cursedly sharp as ever, followed his gaze.

“Like them?” Prowl asked softly.

Mirage kept his voice light. “Very pretty.  Rather gaudy for my taste, though.”

One browridge went up.

“Of course,” Mirage continued, “sometimes loud colours are necessary.  For example, when one is having to shout because a certain recipient is somehow  _not getting the message._ ”  Prowl’s expression gave nothing away.  Mirage sighed after a moment.  “Although I must admit that I’m impressed.  I’m not usually so easily caught.”

“Hound didn’t turn you in, by the way.”

“Oh, I know he didn’t. So what was it?”  The spy leaned in conspiratorially.  “How did I end up top on your list of suspects?”

“Someone who was capable of hacking the lock on my office door without being seen, who can write in Old Iaconian calligraphy, who would think to copy out a quote from a Golden Age poet, and who would confide in Hound, specifically?  Mirage, you  _were_ the list.”

“Well, I do have a rather unique set of talents, if you take my –”

“I won’t ask what you thought you were doing.”  Prowl’s voice, which had been placid, was suddenly low and… savage, to Mirage’s shock. “But it stops, now.  I have enough trouble with the pranks the twins and Smokescreen like to play on senior officers; the very  _last_ thing I need is Spec Ops getting in on the game as well.  I thought better of you.”

Mirage bit back his first, indignant response.  Instead, he sat back and crossed his legs, taking his time about it; he’d just had a polish that day, and he was well aware of how silken his plating looked.  “What if I were to tell you that it wasn’t a prank? That I was entirely…”  One toe trailed up the edge of Prowl’s desk, practically playing footsie with it.  “Sincere, in my gesture?”

Prowl’s face was stone. “Then I would remind you that I am prohibited from entering into any kind of romantic entanglement with someone under my command.”

“Ah.”  Mirage lifted a finger.  “Technically speaking, Spec Ops _doesn’t_ fall under your command, according to Chapter 27, Section 18 of the Autobot Code.”

Prowl tilted his head. If Mirage didn’t know any better, he might have called that expression “impressed”.  “You researched this?”

“That depends.”

“On?”

Mirage deployed his best roguish grin.  “On whether you find being researched sexy.”  It was Prowl, he reasoned; of  _course_ he would.

The narrowed optics took him by surprise.  “I think you’ll find that you can’t simply  _win me on a technicality,_ ” Prowl hissed.

“I – what?  Prowl…”  This wasn’t going the way Mirage had envisioned at all.  His spark whirled in his chest.  “ _Sir,_ that wasn’t what I meant.”

“Wasn’t it?  You found a loophole that means I  _could_ let you into my berth, and you thought that a few flowers, a fancy rendition of a line from the most famous poet Praxus ever produced, and a dose of charm would get you the rest of the way.”  That stony expression was back.  “I have no intention of being an amusing obstacle for bored intelligence operatives to conquer in their spare time.”

Mirage’s anger flared again, but it died almost instantly as he took in the tight, miserable furl of Prowl’s doorwings, and the way he was holding himself up as if he might break.

There was only one thing he could say that might –  _might_ – be enough to convince Prowl of his intentions.

So Mirage said it.

Prowl’s doorwings flared wide.  “ _What_?”

“Well, that bit of poetry I wrote on the tag wasn’t the only thing I unearthed when I started researching romantic customs in Praxus.  I do hope I wasn’t mangling the pronunciation of the original Praxian just now, but I believe the translation is roughly, ‘I humbly beg your approval of my suit to begin courting you,’ is it not?”

“That is…”  Mirage couldn’t remember ever having seen Prowl at a loss for words before.  “In Praxian society, that was not something said lightly.”

“Nor would it be something said by a bored intelligence operative playing games, I would imagine.”

“I…”  Prowl’s voice was small.  “Why?”

“All those operations we carry out; we don’t always see it, but they’re all part of the same intricate master plan.   _Your_ plan.”  Mirage willed himself to look straight into those ice-blue optics.  “Is it so unreasonable for the musician to fall a little in love with the composer, when he writes such exquisite music?”

After a long silence, Prowl finally broke optic contact and straightened the already-straight pile of datapads on his desk.  “Conditional on this remaining between the two of us, and  _never_ interfering with military operations… I grant you permission to court me.  That is not a guarantee that I’ll do anything more than sit back and watch you crash and burn,” he snapped as Mirage grinned.

“Of course it isn’t. I’m fully prepared to prove my worth.” The spy rose and stretched languidly, making sure that the motion twisted his hips to show off the curve of them.  He wasn’t certain, but he thought that Prowl’s optics flitted over his frame, just for a second.  “You won’t regret this.”

He was almost to the door when Prowl called defiantly after him, “I like  _Ferocactus wislizeni_.”

“Pardon?”

“If you’re serious about this ridiculous endeavour, you may as well do it right.   _Ferocactus wislizeni –_ the humans also call it barrel cactus.  There was a stand of it growing not far from the  _Ark’s_ perimeter when we first awoke on Earth.  I like the blossom of it.”

Mirage gave an elegant little bow, and it wasn’t entirely teasing.  Then he straightened up as he consulted the internal files on flowers that Hound had given him.  “Isn’t that the plant that has foot-long spines?”

“Yes.  And you’re the one who’s so eager to prove himself.”  

Mirage  _might_ have imagined the slight twitch at one corner of Prowl’s mouth, the faint curl of his lips that wasn’t quite a smile.

But he didn’t think he had.

**Author's Note:**

> Mirage has read up on his language of flowers. The three blossoms he presents Prowl with mean, in order, secret love, love’s ambassador, and concealed love. 
> 
> Prowl likes cactus blossoms because they keep blooming in adversity, but they also have a meaning: endurance or enduring love - making them an oddly appropriate request, under the circumstances. Prowl himself may or may not have known about that interpretation, but I wouldn’t put it past him. :)


End file.
